Europe

The local and mayoral elections in Italy have exploded the myth of
“Renzi the invincible”. His Democratic Party (PD) in 2014 bucked the
anti-establishment trend by gaining over 40% of the vote in the European
elections. This summer it has been crushed in the capital Rome by the
Five Star Movement (M5S), whose candidate Virginia Raggi won 67% of the
vote to the PD’s 32%. The M5S also routed the PD in its former
stronghold of Turin, home to FIAT and historic workers’ movements.
Another female candidate for them, Chiara Appendino, took 54.5%.

Overall the PD lost half of its councils while the M5S won 19 out of 20
of the second round run-offs which it contested. Renzi tried to dismiss
these elections as a purely local affair with no national relevance. But
with six major cities up for grabs this was a mini general election in
which the PD won only two - Bologna and Milan - both against a candidate
from the Right. Naples in the south was won convincingly by Luigi de
Magistris, the “orange” political “outsider” with strong local support
to the left of the PD, re-elected with 67% of the vote.

Leaving aside the high level of abstention (almost 50%), the M5S was the
main beneficiary of a huge anti-Renzi vote. This was fuelled by an
economy which has been stagnant for almost a decade and is projected to
grow by just 1% this year. There has also been deep disgust at massive
corruption involving all the traditional establishment parties.

The “centre-right” were also losers. Former Prime Minister Berlusconi
was hospitalised after the elections for a heart operation but no amount
of emergency intervention can help his party Forza Italia from its
terminal decline, winning less than 10% of the vote in many areas.

The “lepenismo” of Salvini, leader of the right-wing populist Lega
party, was also defeated. His strategy of going it alone (rather than in
alliance with Forza Italia) and attempting to emulate Marine Le Pen in
France failed dismally with the Lega losing out in Lombardy, including
Varese a symbolic stronghold, and in Rome. In the second round hundreds
of thousands of right-wing voters switched to the M5S to defeat the PD.
In Torino, for example, the votes for the PD’s candidate Fassino
remained almost unchanged while Appendino’s votes increased by nearly
100,000.

With the exception of De Magistris (who says he is considering launching
a national movement), the Left in its various electoral permutations was
almost an irrelevance, losing around a third of its vote in the five
main cities compared to the last local elections in 2011. The Left’s
candidate in Turin, one of the few with national name recognition, got
just 4% of the vote in the first round. These purely opportunist
electoral groupings with no real roots in local areas are incapable of
filling the political void to the left of the PD.

Test for M5S

These elections represent a crucial turning point for the M5S which has
undergone a radical make-over, rebranding itself as a respectable,
credible political alternative. Its co-founder, comedian Beppe Grillo,
has taken a step back. The “anti-party”, “anti-establishment” movement,
sometimes known as “vaffa” or “fuck off” from one of its early slogans,
has effectively transformed itself into a structured, institutional
political party. It wants to show that it is not just a protest movement
but is capable of governing and therefore using these elections as a
spring-board for parliamentary elections due in 2018.

But, faced with running two major cities, the M5S is about to undergo
its toughest test so far. It is one thing to have the mayor of small
cities like Parma and Livorno, both of which have presented the movement
with huge headaches (the mayor of Parma, Pizzarotti was recently
expelled). It is quite another thing to govern the country’s capital
with its major transport and rubbish collection problems, a debt which
is twice its annual budget and a political system infested with mafia,
lobby and vested interests.

Raggi’s electoral programme was deliberately vague on details,
concentrating on “trust” and “transparency”. During her campaign she
tried to reassure worried local authority workers and taxi drivers and
has said she will try to renegotiate the city’s budget and expects
“maximum loyalty” from the Renzi government . But what will happen when
the central government refuses and insists that public services be cut?
How will Raggi be able to govern for “all Romans” when faced with
irreconcilable economic interests and a political system that is rotten
to the core? The experience of Parma, where cuts to local services have
been carried out under a M5S mayor are not encouraging.

It has always been inevitable that the contradictions inherent in a
cross-class populist movement like the M5S would at some point explode
to the surface. While the M5S has emerged relatively unscathed from its
local problems in Parma and in Livorno, its political management of
Turin and especially Rome will be under close national scrutiny.

Fighting back

In Turin, where ControCorrente (CWI Italy) has a certain base amongst
the 5,000 workers employed by the local transport company, GTT, we will
be fighting to defend the transport workers against any attempts at cuts
and privatisation or attacks on working conditions. In doing so, we will
seek to expose the M5S fallacy of representing all “citizens”, to bring
about a class differentiation and to promote the need for a political
party which represents the class interests of workers. In Genova we have
already publicly challenged the M5S on the issue of the crisis at ILVA -
the biggest steel plant in Italy - posing the question: Are you with or
against the working class?

Parliamentary elections are not due until 2018, by which time the
weaknesses of the M5S could be exposed. But Renzi has called a
referendum for October on constitutional changes which, he says, is the
election that really matters; if he loses he will resign. If the broad
opposition to Renzi that emerged in these elections is replicated in
October, which is quite possible, especially given the way in which he
has personalised the referendum, he is likely to lose. This could mean a
general election much sooner with the possibility of the M5S emerging
with an even greater share of the vote than the 25% it received in 2013.

ControCorrente is discussing calling for a ‘No’ vote in the referendum
but this would clearly have to be linked to the question of workers
organising independently for struggle and for the building of a left
political alternative to both the PD and the M5S.